Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Train Driver, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Race and Empathy
Language
Helplessness vs. Agency
Names
Hope vs. Despair
Summary
Analysis
Simon brings Roelf to his candle-lit cabin and allows him to spend the night. Roelf remarks that if his wife, Lorraine, could see him in this place, she would make him soak in Clorox. Lorraine is obsessed with hygiene, and though it makes her happy, Roelf thinks she “carries it a little too far.”
Roelf’s remark that Lorraine would be horrified to see him in Simon’s shack suggests that Lorraine’s obsession with cleanliness is a manifestation of racist and classist beliefs. It calls into question what is “dirty” and whether those things should be automatically discarded as inferior. Roelf thinks that Lorraine goes “a little too far” with her fixation on hygiene, which indicates that although he does not entirely disagree with her viewpoint, he disagrees with its extremity.
Themes
Roelf tells Simon that he thinks about Red Doek every night and has to take pills to sleep. One night, he was talking to himself about the woman when Lorraine sat up and shouted at Roelf to “shut up about that bitch,” claiming that she could smell the woman throughout the house. Simon asks what the woman did to Roelf. Roelf admits that he doesn’t know if the woman did something to him or if he did something to her––all he knows is that she is dead and he is broken.
Lorraine angrily calls Red Doek a “bitch,” which suggests that she shares her husband’s belief that swearing at a problem will relieve inner turmoil. This perspective highlights the simultaneous selfishness and despair that can lead people to inflict verbal violence on others. Roelf’s confession that he doesn’t know whether he or Red Doek is responsible for the current circumstance also marks the beginning of his shift in attitude towards her, as he moves from raw anger to confusion.
Themes
Simon asks what Roelf did to Red Doek, and Roelf bluntly states that he killed her. His coworkers and wife have assured him that he is innocent, assuming that since the woman was Black, she was intoxicated. Their assurances mean nothing to Roelf, though, and the woman’s face continues to haunt him.
Roelf’s story reveals the prevalence of casual racism among white middle-class South Africans, as the people in Roelf’s life resort to racist stereotypes to offer him comfort. But these stereotypes are unfounded and hollow, and Roelf can’t fully believe in them. This indicates that his connection to Red Doek, however complex, challenges the white supremacist notions that Roelf is used to.
Themes
Roelf shows Simon a newspaper clipping about the death, but Simon can’t read, so Roelf reads it for him. The newspaper reveals that a mother and child died on railway tracks on December 12, 2000, and Roelf ruefully notes the irony of killing someone at Christmastime. The article refers to Roelf as “the seriously traumatized train driver” and implies that he could have done nothing to stop the train. He has seen a therapist who tells him the same thing, but Roelf insists that the murderer is either him or God, since they are the only two who saw the woman and her baby die. Since Roelf was the one driving the train, he believes he is the killer and God is only a witness.
In addition to Roelf’s friends and acquaintances, the newspaper and his therapist also see Roelf as a victim and assure him that he was helpless to stop Red Doek’s death. However, it is this very helplessness that haunts him. He knows that he was helpless, but he cannot stop blaming himself for driving the train into Red Doek. He describes the act as lonely and yet intimate. Roelf and God were the only ones who watched Red Doek and her baby die, which at once forms a connection between Roelf and Red Doek and forces him to shoulder responsibility for her death.
Themes
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Roelf recalls the hopelessness in Red Doek’s eyes before she died. The look in her eyes was ready for one of the graveyard’s unmarked graves. Roelf pauses to recover from telling the story. Simon waits patiently for Roelf to continue, staring at him until he does.
Roelf equates the lack of hope in Red Doek’s eyes with a readiness for death, which directly posits hopelessness as the cause of the young woman’s suicide. This link between despair and death suggests that hope is a driving factor that keeps people living, and when they are deprived of hope, they lose the will to go on.
Themes
Roelf continues to tell his story: in the weeks after the accident, he seems to be getting better. He keeps himself busy decorating for Christmas with his wife and children, but he suffers from nightmares. He falls asleep alone by the Christmas tree and dreams of Red Doek. In the dream, he is surrounded by crowds of onlookers cheering as if the killing is a sport. When Roelf wakes up, he is deeply disturbed. He turns the lights of the tree on and off until a “bomb” explodes inside him and he destroys the Christmas tree.
Roelf is able to suppress his guilt and rage for a period of time, but that suppression only makes the inevitable “explosion” more violent. Roelf tries to escape his feelings by focusing on his family, but his despair plagues his subconscious through dreams which eventually spur Roelf to action. This illustrates that ignoring an issue does not resolve it, whether that issue be internal anguish or South Africa’s post-apartheid racial divide. Roelf’s dream of being surrounded by a cheering audience while he kills Red Doek also suggests that Roelf’s guilt is worsened by the refusal of anyone else to blame him for the accident. He is alone in his grief and rage over Red Doek, but he is also alone in his anger at himself for killing her.
Themes
When Lorraine and the children come in to see the smashed tree, Roelf swears at them. Lorraine snaps that he should swear at Red Doek instead, and he resolves to make that his mission. He wants to punish the woman for forcing him into her suicide, but he doesn’t know her name. He believes that he can’t conceptualize the woman until he knows her name, so he plans to learn her name and swear at her in English and in Afrikaans.
Roelf is driven to find Red Doek after his pent-up emotions lead to an explosion of anger. He latches onto that anger to make sense of his feelings, and Roelf’s rage informs his decision to find closure by swearing at Red Doek in both of his languages. Roelf’s intention to learn Red Doek’s name also conveys the importance of names and their relationship to identity. Not only does burying the dead in nameless graves revoke their own individuality, but it also prevents other people from conceiving of the dead as the individuals they once were.
Themes
Unfortunately, no one is able to tell Roelf the woman’s name. He goes from person to person until he meets a policeman who sends him to Mr. Mdoda, and Mr. Mdoda sends him to Simon. Roelf begs Simon to understand, and he insists that the two of them are going to find her grave so Roelf can curse at it. Simon resists, but Roelf continues to argue. The men stare at each other in silence for a long time. Without relenting or refusing, Simon announces that he is going to sleep. He blows out the candle.
Roelf and the audience both begin to learn the extent of Red Doek’s solitude as he searches in vain for anyone who can identify her. The fact that no one even knows the woman’s name highlights that her life and death have both been spent unknown and unloved. Despite learning this, Roelf still fails to empathize with Red Doek, and he remains intent to swear at her.
Themes
